As one of the nine major counties of the Great Zhou Dynasty, Qingzhou is naturally not as prosperous as a small Anqiu. Yuan Bugui, Chen Qingshuang, and Chen Anzhi, under the escort of the soldiers of Qingzhou Mansion, rode horses to the Zhenyuan Marquis Mansion on Zhuque Street.

There are many shops along the way, and it is crowded with people. The shouting, shouting, and bargaining are endless. The strong aroma of the food, the fragrance of melons and fruits, and the sweet aroma of snacks stimulated Chen Anzhi, who had been eating dry food for more than half a month, to inhale this aroma deeply, and he didn't realize that he had already spoken with relish.

Yuan Bugui turned back to Chen Anzhi: "An Zhixian's nephew, you will go to the house after crossing this street, and you can have a good rest then." As he spoke, he had reached the end of Suzaku Street, and when he turned to the right, the noise outside disappeared immediately, and only the occasional birdsong could be heard in the shade of the trees, as if there was a barrier cutting off the connection with the outside world. As if sensing Chen Anzhi's surprise, Yuan Bugui smiled and said quite proudly: "Don't be surprised, this is just a small application of the formation." ”

At the gate of the Hou Mansion, there was already a small servant waiting there, waiting for the three of them to dismount, and the butler led the three of them into the lobby. The Zhenyuan Marquis Mansion is not very big, but everything has a rich self-esteem, exquisite but not dazzling. The three of them sat down, and Yuan Bugui and Chen Qingshuang recounted some anecdotes about the temples and wilderness in recent years. Chen Anzhi didn't understand it very well, and felt that it was a little boring, so he concentrated on dealing with the four-color dim sum in front of him, and only ate it with a fragrant mouth, and he forgot about it.

A pair of crystal clear soft cakes holding a stack of mille-feuille soft cakes appeared in front of Chen Anzhi's eyes. "Brother An, I heard my father say that the most famous dim sum in Anqiu is the mille-feuille cake, I just learned it, you can taste it. The voice was glutinous, soft, with seven points of tenderness and three points of shyness.

Chen Anzhi hurriedly raised his head. The woman in front of her was about fourteen or fifteen years old, wearing a goose-yellow pleated ruyi moon dress, with low eyebrows and lowered eyes, and a smile. Between the eyebrows, there is a vague look of Yuan Yuan in Chen Anzhi's impression, but the girl's meaty little round face when she was a child has now grown into a goose egg shape, which is a little less immature and cute, but a little more beautiful. Xu was because of the shyness of not seeing her first encounter for many years, and a light red appeared on Yuan Yuan's tender and pretty face, which added a coquettishness to the already soft girl. Chen Anzhidu was stunned.

Yuan Yuan waited for Chen Anzhi for a long time without moving, and hurriedly raised his eyes to look, and saw Chen Anzhi's face with a stunned and sluggish expression, and felt a little happy in his heart, but he faked anger and said: "Brother An, isn't it that the pastries made by Ayuan are not to your liking?"

Chen Anzhi came back to his senses, hurriedly took the pastry with both hands, grabbed a piece and stuffed it into his mouth, and swallowed it in one bite before he could chew it. I never thought that the mille-feuille cake was sticky, but I was choked. Chen Anyi picked up his teacup and poured a few sips of water indiscriminately, swallowing desperately, and finally put the pastry into his stomach and breathed a sigh of relief.

Yuan Yuan couldn't help but chuckle when she saw Chen An's deputies in a hurry, and said, "Brother An, eat slowly, hehe, don't choke anymore." Ayuan went back to the room first. With that, he went back to the inner hall first. Chen Anzhi was in a trance for a while, his mind was full of Yuan Yuan's smiling and lovely figure just now, and after eating a plate of pastries, he was stunned that he didn't taste anything.

It's night, Hou's study. The light of an oil lamp like a bean kept jumping and swaying, setting off the whole study in a dim and uncertain way. Chen Qingshuang and Yuan Bugui stood with their backs. Yuan Bugui's tone was low: "Brother Qingshuang, how did you make such a big mistake, making a break in the sword and making the whole country boil?"

"It was my carelessness. Chu Huaiyu pretended to use the hand of Princess Xirui to guide my true yuan to break the seal I planted on An Zhi's body, causing the king's qi to leak out and the dragon to groan in the air. Chen Qingshuang gave a general account of what happened that day.

Yuan Bugui pondered for a long time and said: "God returns to Dayan, and he will not leave anything behind." Has Chu Huaiyu really cultivated to such a realm!But what is the purpose of his actions?" As if talking to himself, without waiting for Chen Qingshuang to speak, Yuan Bugui continued: "Chu Huaiyu's matter will be put aside first. It's just that as soon as you escaped from Anqiu, why did you choose to go through the Taibai Mountains to Jizhou? If I hadn't blocked you in Taibai Mountain, would you have to take An Zhi to hide and not reappear. Chen Zuo, do you still remember the entrustment of the door master back then!"

In the end, Yuan Bugui was already very powerful. With a wave of his right hand, the light on the oil lamp suddenly rose and fell violently, and the originally dim study was instantly as bright as day, leaving only a slight shadow where Chen Qingshuang was standing. Chen Qingshuang smiled bitterly, pointed into a sword, and slowly stabbed towards the void, fighting with the fire formation formed by Yuan Bugui's wave. The entire Hou Mansion seemed to tremble at this blow, Chen Qingshuang's face turned pale, and he coughed lightly, and a faint trace of blood flowed down from the corner of his lips.

Chen Qingshuang breathed a sigh of relief and chuckled: "I haven't seen you for a few years, Brother Yuan's temper is still so violent. Today, when I entered the Hou Mansion, I felt it, and I was afraid that the entire mansion would be refined by Brother Yuan into an external realm. Just tried a trick, and it did. Dare to ask Brother Yuan how far away from the 'Dao' realm is with his current cultivation?"

When Yuan Bugui heard this, his face turned pale, "Since I was a child, I have been practicing qi for more than 50 years now. The longer you cultivate, the deeper your cultivation becomes, but the hope of taking this step is getting slimmer and slimmer. ”

"Brother Yuan still remembers that the master of the sect warned me several times when he first broke through, and I should not take that step again. I didn't really understand it until nearly two years. Chen Qingshuang said as she slowly walked towards Yuan Bugui.

It is said to be a slow step, in fact, it is more appropriate to call it moving, just like the frozen body only dares to move lightly, bending the knees, lifting the feet, moving forward, and touching the ground, the whole action is obviously slow to the extreme in Yuan Bugui's eyes, but it is completed in an instant. It's like the last moment of the whole process of action is extremely compressed.

The first step of the right foot is pointed, the room is full of cold, the fire is extinguished, and the fire array is self-defeating. Then the second step of the left foot stepped out, and the wind rose in the night sky of the Hou Mansion, and the clouds surged. The wind and clouds naturally gave birth to lightning and thunder, and occasionally a flash of lightning swept around the Hou Mansion, and the entire Hou Mansion could be seen trembling in this wind and rain. Yuan Bugui's mind had already been connected to the Hou Mansion, and at this moment, his internal breath was shaking, and he couldn't help but be shocked in his heart, and secretly watched Chen Qingshuang's next moves.

There is no third step, or Chen Qingshuang has already taken the third step. Whether it was cold, lightning or thunder, they all disappeared without a trace in an instant. If it weren't for the fact that the internal breath was still in shock, Yuan Bugui might still think that everything that appeared before was just an illusion. Then Yuan Bugui was surprised to find that Chen Qingshuang's figure had also dissipated in this room. Whether it was the five senses or the Yuan Qi lock, Yuan Bugui couldn't feel his position.

Behind Yuan Bugui's back, an emaciated palm emerged from the void and gently patted his right shoulder. Xuan Bing's strength instantly broke through Yuan Bugui's protective true yuan and sealed the bloodlines around him. Yuan Bugui turned his neck with difficulty, and what he saw was Chen Qingshuang's figure slowly forming in the void. The dim light of the oil lamp, the dust gently floating in the light, and even the breeze brought up by himself when he turned his neck, under the pull of an indescribable force, first kneaded into Chen Qingshuang's blurred figure, and then became clear little by little.

Looking at Chen Qingshuang's familiar face, Yuan Bugui was about to say something, but inadvertently touched Chen Qingshuang's eyes, and he was stunned, and he always felt that something was wrong.

Chen Qingshuang's face was as unwavering as usual, but the feeling revealed in her eyes at this time seemed to have no emotion as a 'human', not indifferent, but with an indescribable indifference, with a coldness overlooking the common people. Chen Qingshuang's eyelids drooped, and when he opened them again, he had already withdrawn the Xuanbing energy sealed on Yuan Bugui's body, and the aura of being a 'human' had finally returned to him.

"Brother Yuan, you should feel it!" Yuan Bugui was silent. Chen Qingshuang continued: "One step to refine the soul, two steps to lead the machine, and three steps to shatter the void. This is my 'way', my little brother. However, after self-breakthrough, he never dared to take two and a half steps. When I was half a step into the air, I was already deeply immersed in the attraction of this heaven and earth avenue qi to my soul, if it weren't for the fact that there was still a trace of clarity on the spiritual platform, I am afraid that I would have been lost in this avenue and lost my self-consciousness. ”

As if he was still palpitating, Chen Qingshuang took a deep breath: "Back then, the door master took more than three steps, at least now as long as I think of the realm that the door master once had, I still see flowers in the fog, and I can't even touch a scaly claw." Brother Yuan, even though the master of the door is amazing and brilliant, there is no right in the world, but can you be sure that he has not been lost in the end!"

"Have you forgotten that if it weren't for the last year of the sect master's illness, how could we have failed and fallen into such a ridiculous situation! And with the sect master's cultivation, we are already invulnerable to all diseases, how could we get sick! Brother Yuan, do you still remember the look in his eyes when the two of us received the will of the door master in the tent? Every time I think about it, I shudder!"

Chen Qingshuang was silent for a while, as if organizing a sentence that could be used to describe the scene at that time, "Barren, just barren, you can't see the barrenness of anything, even the light and shadow are sucked into it and assimilated into barren barrenness." Brother Yuan, is that still the eyes of a 'human'?"

Yuan Bugui listened, his eyes showed a little confused, and after a while, he regained firmness. He said loudly: "Since I, Yuan, have made a promise, how can I not fulfill it! If a person has no faith, what face can he stand on between heaven and earth." Brother Qingshuang doesn't need to say much, if you want to escape the rivers and lakes with Anzhi, then draw your sword. Even if you fold under the Qingshuang Sword today, it is better than being unstable and restless in the future!"

Chen Qingshuang smiled bitterly: "Brother Yuan is serious. How dare the little brother break his promise. It's just that after so many years of getting along with An Zhi, father and son depend on each other, after all, there will still be reluctance. In this way, if the younger brother is not mistaken, there are still four years before the appointment of the year, and I hope that Brother Yuan will not let anything bother An Zhi during this time, so that he can quietly enjoy the time of ordinary people in these last few years. ”

"Hmph, father and son depend on each other, I'm afraid that when he understands the truth, he will draw his sword against you, Brother Qingshuang. ”

"Then we'll wait until that day. The study was silent, and only the oil lamp was like a bean, jumping tirelessly.